Clearly stung by the criticism of The Hive on Monday, The WTO has sprung into action and circulated a "text" on services. Unfortnately it seems to have things heading backwards. This is bad as services are really important for all economies particularly economies such as ours. One press release we read the other day suggested that Wellington's GDP is 90% services. We guess the positive is that the negotiators have something to negotiate on.
Our reading of the text on Non-Agriculture Market Access also suggests backward movement. It will be interesting to see how the US and EU react to this.
The text seems to have received a cautious welcome from the Global Services Coalition.
